Luminaires are used in various commercial and consumer applications to provide illumination to desired areas, such as canopies disposed over fuel pumps in service stations, storefronts, restaurants, drive-throughs, or other businesses. Such luminaires are typically mounted on or within a support structure such as a ceiling, a canopy structure, or a building exterior. Recently, lighting elements comprising light emitting diodes (LEDs) have replaced previously used lighting elements, such as high intensity discharge lamps. Regardless of the particular lighting element utilized, the construction of prior surface mount luminaires suffer various drawbacks.
For example, accessing the interior working components of conventional luminaires, particularly the drivers and other control components, is difficult and typically requires that the lighting fixture itself be removed from the mounting surface, or that the lens elements or other components be removed in order to access such working components.
Moreover, prior surface mount luminaires provide little flexibility for tuning the light emitted from the luminaire to accommodate various lighting situations.
A need therefore exits for an improved surface mount luminaire that overcomes these and other drawbacks of existing luminaires.